It tends to happen the most with other atypicalities, but even when it doesn't, it just doesn't look right. Humans have certain proportions, ratios, and we can usually tell when someone is off by a fairly small margin. Genitals are no different in that regard.
You might not immediately think "micropenis", but you'd be able to tell things weren't normative.
Now, it might be pretty easy to shove that aside and assume it would grow later on, and they do. They just don't grow to normative proportions, they stay micro, just not the same size as they start.
Just another anecdote, but I have 2 boys. I can't tell if one has a micropenis and the other has a macropenis. One looks smaller than proportional, but not "micro?" One looks, well, otherwise. They are both huge kids otherwise.. Maybe they are both near other sides of average, but I'm not spending time trying to figure that out.
Well, if they're much past infancy, there's only so much that could be done until they're adults anyway. Afaik, the kind of hormonal treatments to cause growth work way less past the early years. After that, it tends to need surgical intervention to change, but that's just based on the last time I was reading up on it, which has been about a year at this point.
That being said, it's worth talking to their doctor because the underlying causes can cause other problems that would be better detected early.
It's a really simple thing to have checked, it's just measuring the penis and comparing that to charts. No trauma involved, no complicated procedure, and unless it does point to a formal diagnosis there's no further action needed.
It's one of those things where knowing can give everyone involved time to prepare for anything down the road.
I don't think it was that uncommon for a boomer dad to never change a diaper. One of my friends dad was bragging about it and my own dad was a little surprised to see me change one. Luxury of a single income supporting a middle class family of 4 I guess.
Well, considering the is dated last year, I didn't consider that anon would be old enough to have boomer parents and be coming out late in life, but that is possible. I sometimes forget that my generation hasn't all come out yet. I'm just so used to the only people coming put in my life being under 30, that it's become three unconscious association that someone coming out has to be younger.
You'd think I'd know better, what with seeing the occasional article about someone from my mom's age range deciding it's time to transition, and she was at the tail end of the baby boom.
I'm 40 and would have no idea how big penis of a toddler should be - and with all growth hormone stuff happening, I wouldn't feel comfortable at judging at this age (besides that it is mostly irrelevant in long term relationships)
Also, my personal penis, so to speak, can be very minor, but as a grower I needed to step up my confidence, when being naked - but of curse instead of an actual micro penis, mine seems to be just shy and needs some encouraging words or kisses.
So maybe I can't relate.
Micropenis is typically noticed in the initial physical exam after birth. The upper limit for that criteria is about half of the typical/normative, so it's visually distinct even at birth. It's not determined by erect length at all.
Penises do grow over time, no matter what size they start, but there's limits to how much. Even as puberty hits, someone with a micropenis will only get so much extra because of the underlying limitations of the tissues. If someone of normative length gets a 10% change (as an example, I don't recall the actual number ranges for pubertal changes), that same basic range is all the person with a micropenis is going to get too.
And you're exactly right, it has next to zero impact on long term relationships. I wanna say that out of maybe fifteen or sixteen patients I had that fit the criteria, all but three had kids. So it's definitely not a barrier to sex at all. The one patient I had that was unusually talkative about it (most of them would just state the fact and describe any special needs they'd have for bathing, then never mention it again) said that once he read "the joy of sex" and learned how to do oral, he and his wife did fine, which she said was true as well, fwiw.
It might just have "turned" micro afterwards, with a combination of a bunch of stuff, like them being a grower, the person putting on weight and also losing libido.
Someone putting on weight could be called buried penis. Totally different thing as well.
Libido loss doesn't have anything to do with the penis itself, directly. There may be an underlying hormonal issue that causes both, but that's still different. And, sometimes people with micropenis may have psychological issues with their penis that interferes with libido as well. But, again that's not the same thing.
And, no, it doesn't "turn" micro later. By definition, it's an inborn thing. It would be called something else if it happens later in life.
The most recent research into this is barely a year old, but it only backed up and refined previous information; this stuff has been documented and studied since at least the seventies, since that's when the first surgeries for altering the condition took place. And that's just as far as I know currently.
It's maybe one of those things where there's a gap between the actual definition of a medical term and the colloquial usage, but I'm going off of the medical version. Again, from that standard, it is inborn, with the key factor in causing it being hormonal abnormalities in utero. The reasons for those hormonal issues are varied, and may have other symptoms after birth, but for it to be micropenis instead of something else, it's an in utero malformation.
I meant that the person on that image could be describing themselves as having a micro penis because of those things instead of actually having a micro penis. That's why I placed the word "turn" in quotes.
39 year old dad here. Being proud of not changing diapers was my dad's generation for sure. I've certainly changed plenty, and I can't think of any peers who haven't.
Yeah, that's true. I just don't think that way. Kinda dumb of me to not consider the possibilities. I mean, it could be a step-dad, and they didn't become anon's dad until later. Could have been deployed in the military and didn't have the chance. Someone else pointed out that the dad could have been older, in the actual baby boomer range; and that reminded me that I had assumed anon was a younger person when that doesn't have to be the case
I just default to the idea of fatherhood that I was raised around, and how I wanted to be a dad. Couldn't get out of my own head before I commented lol. You'd think I'd know better